[act five; chapter five - and see the world in endless sleep]
Percy took the risk of using his mom's cell phone to call Andromeda for the second time. He'd called her once from the tunnel, but only reached her voice mail. He had surprisingly good reception, seeing as he was at the mythological centre of the world and all, but he didn't want to see what his mom's roaming charges were going to be.
This time, she picked up.
"Hey," Percy said. "You get my message?"
"Percy, where have you been? Your message said almost nothing! Also, my brother better be alive, or so help me, Jackson, I will drown you in the lake when no one is looking. Also, we've been worried about you guys, you just up and left without warning."
"I'll fill you in later," he said, though how he was going to do that he had no idea.
"Where are you?"
"We're on our way like you asked, almost to the Queens Midtown Tunnel."
"Okay, Perc, but what are you planning? We've left the camp virtually undefended and there's no way the gods—"
"Trust me," he reassured. "I'll see you there."
"Okay. Just...stay safe. Please."
Percy hung up. His hands were trembling. He wasn't sure if it was a leftover reaction from his dip in the Styx, or anticipation of what he was about to do. If this didn't work, being invulnerable wasn't going to save him from getting blasted to bits.
It was late afternoon when the taxi dropped him and Donnie at the Empire State Building. Mrs O'Leary bounded up and down Fifth Avenue, licking cabs and sniffing hot-dog carts. Nobody seemed to notice her, although people did swerve away and look confused when she came close.
Percy whistled her to heel as three white vans pulled up to the curb. They said Delphi Strawberry Service, which was the cover name for Camp Half-Blood. He'd never seen all three vans in the same place at once, though he knew they shuttled their fresh produce into the city.
The first van was driven by Argus, their many-eyed security chief. The other two were driven by harpies, which are basically demonic human/chicken hybrids with bad attitudes. They used the harpies mostly for cleaning camp, but they did pretty well in midtown traffic, too.
The doors slid open. A bunch of campers climbed out, some of them looking a little green from the long drive. Percy was glad so many had come: Pollux, Silena Beauregard, the Stoll brothers, Michael Yew, Jake Mason, Katie Gardner, Janaya,Annabeth, and Andromeda, along with most of their respective siblings. Chiron came out of the van last. His horse half was compacted into his magic wheelchair, so he used the handicap lift. The Ares cabin wasn't here, but Percy tried not to get too angry about that. Clarisse was a stubborn idiot. End of story.
He did a head count: forty or so campers in all.
Not many to fight a war, but it was still the largest group of half-bloods he'd ever seen gathered in one place outside camp. Everyone looked nervous, and he understood why. They were probably sending out so much demigod aura that every monster in the north-east United States knew they were here.
As Percy looked at their faces—all these campers he'd known for so many summers—a nagging voice whispered in his mind: One of them is a spy.
But he couldn't dwell on that. They were his friends. He needed them.
Then he remembered Kronos's evil smile. You can't count on friends. They will always let you down.
Andromeda came up to him, barreling into his open arms. She was dressed in black camouflage joggers, a long sleeve black shirt, and a pair of red Chucks, with her bronze chestplate, and her red hair in a long french braid down her back. Annabeth came up right behind her, placing a hand on the redhead's shoulder as the daughter of Dionysus looked at Percy with scrutinising eyes.
She frowned. "What is it?"
"What's what?" He asked.
"You're looking at me funny."
He realised he was thinking about his strange vision of Andromeda pulling him out of the Styx River. "It's, uh, nothing." He turned to the rest of the group. "Thanks for coming, everybody. Chiron, after you."
Their old mentor shook his head. "I came to wish you luck, my boy. But I make it a point never to visit Olympus unless I am summoned."
"But you're our leader."
He smiled. "I am your trainer, your teacher. That is not the same as being your leader. I will go gather what allies I can. It may not be too late to convince my brother centaurs to help. Meanwhile, you called the campers here, Percy. You are the leader."
Percy wanted to protest, but everybody was looking at him expectantly, even Andromeda.
He took a deep breath. "Okay, like I told Andromeda on the phone, something bad is going to happen by tonight. Some kind of trap. We've got to get an audience with Zeus and convince him to defend the city. Remember, we can't take no for an answer."
He asked Argus to watch Mrs O'Leary, which neither of them looked happy about.
Chiron shook his hand. "You'll do well, Percy. Just remember your strengths and beware your weaknesses."
It sounded eerily close to what Achilles had told him. Then he remembered Chiron had taught Achilles. That didn't exactly reassure him, but he nodded and tried to give him a confident smile.
Chiron briefly turned towards Andromeda and cupped her face in his hands. "You know what is coming, Andromeda. You know what you must do."
She nodded with a determined look on her face, her amethyst eyes unwavering, and her stance strong, prepared.
"Let's go," Percy told the campers.
A security guard was sitting behind the desk in the lobby, reading a big black book with a flower on the cover. He glanced up when they all filed in with their weapons and armour clanking. "School group? We're about to close up."
"No," Percy said. "Six-hundredth floor."
He checked them out. His eyes were pale blue and his head was completely bald. Percy couldn't tell if he was human or not, but he seemed to notice their weapons, so he guessed he wasn't fooled by the Mist.
"There is no six-hundredth floor, kid." He said it like it was a required line he didn't believe. "Move along."
Percy leaned across the desk. "Forty demigods attract an awful lot of monsters. You really want us hanging out in your lobby?"
He tilted his head towards the group as Andromeda came up next to Percy and looked straight at the guard, her eyes glowing slightly. She tilted her head slightly and a purple haze glassed over the man's eyes, showing him whatever Andromeda had thought would convince him. She grinned when the haze disappeared and leaned her arms on the counter.
He thought about that. Then he hit a buzzer and the security gate swung open. "Make it quick."
"You don't want us going through the metal detectors," Percy added.
"Um, no," he agreed. "Elevator on the right. I guess you know the way."
The boy tossed him a golden drachma and they marched through.
They decided it would take two trips to get everybody up in the elevator. Percy went with the first group, along with Andromeda. Different elevator music was playing since their last visit—hat old disco song 'Stayin' Alive'. A terrifying image flashed through Percy's mind of Apollo in bell bottom trousers and a slinky silk shirt.
He was glad when the elevator doors finally dinged open. In front of them, a path of floating stones led through the clouds up to Mount Olympus, hovering two thousand metres over Manhattan.
He'd seen Olympus several times, but it still took his breath away. The mansions glittered gold and white against the sides of the mountain. Gardens bloomed on a hundred terraces. Scented smoke rose from braziers that lined the winding streets. And right at the top of the snow-capped crest rose the main palace of the gods. It looked as majestic as ever, but something seemed wrong. Then he realised the mountain was silent—no music, no voices, no laughter.
Andromeda studied him. "You look...different," she decided. "Where exactly did you go?"
The elevator doors opened again and the second group of half-bloods joined them.
"Tell you later," He said. "Come on."
He took her hand in his, and made their way across the sky bridge into the streets of Olympus. The shops were closed. The parks were empty. A couple of muses sat on a bench strumming flaming lyres, but their hearts didn't seem to be into it. A lone Cyclops swept the street with an uprooted oak tree. A minor godling spotted them from a balcony and ducked inside, closing his shutters.
They passed under a big marble archway with statues of Zeus and Hera on either side. Andromeda made a face at the queen of the gods.
"Hate her," she muttered.
"Has she been cursing you or something?" Percy asked. Last year Andromeda and Annabeth had gotten on Hera's bad side, but neither had really talked about it since.
"Just little stuff so far," she said. "Her sacred animal is the cow, right?"
"Right."
"So she sends cows after Annabeth. And her feathery little death peacocks after me."
He tried not to smile. "Peacocks? In Cape Cod?"
"Oh, yeah. Usually I don't see them, but then they show up out of nowhere, poking and pecking at me like I'm a popcorn kernel."
"Look!" Pollux cried, pointing towards the horizon. "What is that?"
Andromeda spun around in his direction with her hand over her heart. "Pollux! Stop yelling, gods, I thought something bad happen—"
They all froze. Blue lights were streaking across the evening sky towards Olympus like tiny comets. They seemed to be coming from all over the city, heading straight towards the mountain. As they got close, they fizzled out. They watched them for several minutes and they didn't seem to do any damage, but still it was strange.
"Like infrared scopes," Michael Yew muttered. "We're being targeted."
"Let's get to the palace," Percy said.
No one was guarding the hall of the gods. The gold-and-silver doors stood wide open. Their footsteps echoed as they walked into the throne room.
Of course, 'room' doesn't really cover it. The place was the size of Madison Square Garden. High above, the blue ceiling glittered with constellations. Twelve giant empty thrones stood in a U around a hearth. In one corner, a house-sized globe of water hovered in the air, and inside swam an old friend, the Ophiotaurus—half-cow, half-serpent.
"Moooo!" he said happily, turning in a circle.
Despite all the serious stuff going on, Percy had to smile. Two years ago they'd spent a lot of time trying to save the Ophiotaurus from the Titans, and he'd got kind of fond of him. He seemed to like Percy, too, even though he'd originally thought he was a girl and named him Bessie.
"Hey, man," he said. "They treating you okay?"
"Mooo," Bessie answered.
They walked towards the thrones and a woman's voice said, "Hello again, Percy Jackson. You and your friends are welcome."
Hestia stood by the hearth, poking the flames with a stick. She wore the same kind of simple brown dress as she had before, but she was a grown woman now.
Percy bowed. "Lady Hestia."
His friends followed his example, Andromeda smiling widely at one of her favourite goddesses.
Hestia regarded Percy with her red glowing eyes. "I see you went through with your plan. You bear the curse of Achilles."
The other campers started muttering among themselves: "What did she say?"
"What about Achilles?"
"You must be careful," Hestia warned him. "You gained much on your journey. But you are still blind to the most important truth. Perhaps a glimpse is in order."
Annabeth nudged him as she came up to them. "Um...what is she talking about?"
Percy stared into Hestia's eyes and an image rushed into his mind: He saw something he had only ever heard about.
There was a house lit by flames, screams of someone, someone young and terrified, breaking through the air. And then he saw her, a little girl standing in the midst of it all, fiery red curls, pale olive skin dotted with freckles, her entire body covered in ash and soot. Tears were streaming down her face as she cried out. He looked up at another person—a woman with the same red hair, the same skin tone, the same freckles, but with sky blue eyes. He watched as she was impaled by a spear, a spear that was held by a cyclops.
The girl cried out, sounding more broken than ever, and collapsed to her knees. As she made contact with the ground—waves of purple mania, he realised—surrounded her, enveloping those around her, sending them into madness and lunacy.
He watched as she cried and cried and cried, vines weaving over her like a safety net, not letting anything of the world around her touch the small, fragile girl.
Suddenly, it all shifted, and Percy was standing in a familiar house.
Luke was there, and so was Donnie and Andromeda. They were younger, only by a few years, and definitely sometime before Percy came to camp. Donnie was laughing at something that Luke had said, but Andromeda was just taking in everything around her, her eyes gazing around in an almost lost manner.
Suddenly, a woman walked in and smiled at them, muttering something to herself.
The smile on Luke's face fell and in a second, the three kids were running towards the door as the woman followed them, yelling the same words over and over again. It rotated between "It is Fate" and "Aristos Achaion".
The vision shut off.
Percy's knees buckled, but Andromeda grabbed me. "Percy! What happened?"
"Did—did you see that?" He asked.
"See what?"
He glanced at Hestia, but the goddess's face was expressionless. He remembered something she'd told him in the woods: If you are to understand your enemy Luke, you must understand his family. But why had she shown him those scenes?
"How long was I out?" He muttered.
Annabeth knitted her eyebrows. "Percy, you weren't out at all. You just looked at Hestia for, like, one second and collapsed."
Andromeda nodded, "People need to stop passing out and screaming because I will actually lose my mind."
Percy could feel everyone's eyes on him. He couldn't afford to look weak. Whatever those visions meant, he had to stay focused on their mission.
"Um, Lady Hestia," he said, "we've come on urgent business. We need to see—"
"We know what you need," a man's voice said. A god shimmered into existence next to Hestia. He looked about twenty-five, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and elfin features. He wore a military pilot's flight suit, with tiny birds' wings fluttering on his helmet and his black leather boots. In the crook of his arm was a long staff entwined with two living serpents.
"I will leave you now," Hestia said. She bowed to the aviator and disappeared into smoke, but not before sending a wink Andromeda's direction.
Hermes, the god of messengers, did not look happy.
"Hello, Percy." His brow furrowed like he was annoyed with him, and he wondered if he somehow knew about the vision he'd just had. He wanted to ask what exactly had happened at May Castellan's house that day the Storm twins and Luke visited, but he could tell from Hermes' expression that this was not the time to ask.
Percy bowed awkwardly. "Lord Hermes."
Oh, sure, one of the snakes said in his mind. Don't say hi to us. We're just reptiles.
George, the other snake scolded. Be polite.
"Hello, George," Percy said. "Hey, Martha."
Did you bring us a rat? George asked.
George, stop it, Martha said. He's busy!
Too busy for rats? George said. That's just sad.
Percy decided it was better not to get into it with George.
"Um, Hermes," he said. "We need to talk to Zeus. It's important."
Hermes' eyes were steely cold. "I am his messenger. May I take a message?"
Behind him, the other demigods shifted restlessly. This wasn't going as planned. Maybe if he tried to speak with Hermes in private...
"You guys," Percy said. "Why don't you do a sweep of the city? Check the defences. See who's left in Olympus. Meet Lea, Donnie, Annabeth and I back here in thirty minutes."
Silena frowned. "But—"
"That's a good idea," Annabeth said. "Connor and Travis, you two lead."
The Stolls seemed to like that—getting handed an important responsibility right in front of their dad. They usually never led anything except toilet-paper raids. "We're on it!" Travis said. They herded the others out of the throne room, leaving the four half-bloods with Hermes.
"My lord," Annabeth said. "Kronos is going to attack New York. You must suspect that. My mother must have foreseen it."
"Your mother," Hermes grumbled. He scratched his back with his caduceus, and George and Martha muttered, Ow, ow, ow. "Don't get me started on your mother, young lady. She's the reason I'm here at all. Zeus didn't want any of us to leave the front line. But your mother kept pestering him nonstop, "It's a trap, it's a diversion," blah, blah, blah. She wanted to come back herself, but Zeus was not going to let his number-one strategist leave his side while we're battling Typhon. And so, naturally, he sent me to talk to you."
"But it is a trap!" Annabeth insisted. "Is Zeus blind?"
Thunder rolled through the sky.
"I'd watch the comments, girl," Hermes warned. "Zeus is not blind or deaf. He has not left Olympus completely undefended."
Donnie scoffed, 'But there are these blue lights—"
"Yes, yes. I saw them. Some mischief by that insufferable goddess of magic, Hecate, I'd wager, but you may have noticed they aren't doing any damage. Olympus has strong magical wards. Besides, Aeolus, the king of the winds, has sent his most powerful minions to guard the citadel. No one save the gods can approach Olympus from the air. They would be knocked out of the sky."
Percy raised my hand. "Um...what about that materialising thing you guys do?"
"That's a form of air travel, too, Jackson. Very fast, but the wind gods are faster. No—if Kronos wants Olympus, he'll have to march through the entire city with his army and take the elevators! Can you see him doing this?"
Hermes made it sound pretty ridiculous—hordes of monsters going up in the elevator twenty at a time, listening to 'Stayin' Alive'. Still, none of them liked it.
"Maybe just a few of you could come back," Andromeda suggested. "Give some more support."
Hermes shook his head impatiently. "Andromeda Storm, you don't understand. Typhon is our greatest enemy."
"I thought that was Kronos."
The god's eyes glowed. "No, Andromeda. In the old days, Olympus was almost overthrown by Typhon. He is husband of Echidna—"
"Yeah, we met her at the Arch," she muttered. "Not so nice."
"—and the father of all monsters. We can never forget how close he came to destroying us all – how he humiliated us! We were more powerful back in the old days. Now we can expect no help from Poseidon because he's fighting his own war. Hades sits in his realm and does nothing, and Demeter and Persephone follow his lead. It will take all our remaining power to oppose the storm giant. We can't divide our forces, nor wait until he gets to New York. We have to battle him now. And we're making progress."
"Oh, so this is about humility? And progress? That's rich. He nearly destroyed St Louis."
"Yes," Hermes admitted. "But he destroyed only half of Kentucky. He's slowing down. Losing power."
Percy didn't want to argue, and he really didn't want Andromeda to of all people, but it sounded like Hermes was trying to convince himself.
In the corner, the Ophiotaurus mooed sadly.
"Please, Hermes," Annabeth said. "You said my mother wanted to come. Did she give you any messages for us?"
"Messages," he muttered. ""It'll be a great job," they told me. "Not much work. Lots of worshippers." Hmph. Nobody cares what I have to say. It's always about other people's messages."
Rodents, George mused. I'm in it for the rodents.
Shhh, Martha scolded. We care what Hermes has to say. Don't we, George?
Oh, absolutely. Can we go back to the battle now? I want to do laser mode again. That's fun.
"Quiet, both of you," Hermes grumbled. The god looked at Annabeth, who was doing her 'big pleading grey eyes' thing.
"Bah," Hermes said. "Your mother said to warn you that you are on your own. You must hold Manhattan without the help of the gods. As if I didn't know that. Why they pay her to be the wisdom goddess, I'm not sure."
"Anything else?" Annabeth asked.
'She said you should try plan twenty-three. She said you would know what that meant.'
Annabeth's face paled. Obviously, she knew what it meant, and she didn't like it. "Go on."
"Last thing." Hermes looked at Percy. "She said to tell Percy: "Remember the rivers." And, um—Dionysus said something about staying away from his daughter, but Aphrodite and Apollo are both rooting for you.'
Percy's not sure whose face was redder: Andromeda or his own.
"Thank you, Hermes," Donnie said, speaking up. "And I-I wanted to say...I'm sorry about Luke. I'm sorry I couldn't have done more."
The god's expression hardened like he'd turned to marble. "You should've left that subject alone."
Donnie cocked his head slightly, "Sorry?"
"SORRY doesn't cut it!"
George and Martha curled around the caduceus, which shimmered and changed into something that looked suspiciously like a high-voltage cattle prod.
"You should've saved him when you had the chance," Hermes growled at him, and then Annabeth, and back at Donnie. "You're the only ones who could have."
Percy tried to step between them as Andromeda shook her head at her brother, pressing their foreheads together as she murmured softly, all while clutching Annabeth's hand, squeezing in a one-two-three pattern. "What are you talking about? Donnie and Annabeth didn't—"
"Don't defend them, Jackson!" Hermes turned the cattle prod towards him. "They both know exactly what I'm talking about."
Andromeda spun towards him and pointed her finger at him, her eyes dark. "And maybe you should blame yourself, take responsibility for once! Maybe you shouldn't have walked away, maybe you should've given a shit about your kid! So don't you dare blame them!"
Hermes raised his cattle prod. He began to grow until he was three metres tall. Percy thought: Well, that's it.
But as he prepared to strike, George and Martha leaned in close and whispered something in his ear.
Hermes clenched his teeth. He lowered the cattle prod and it turned back to a staff.
"Andromeda Storm," he said, 'I must spare you due to your role in the prophecy. And you, Percy Jackson, because you have taken on the curse of Achilles. You are both in the hands of the Fates now. But you will never speak to me like that again. You have no idea how much I have sacrificed, how much—" His voice broke, and he shrank back to human size. "My son, my greatest pride...my poor May..."
He sounded so devastated Percy didn't know what to say. One minute he was ready to vaporise them. Now he looked like he needed a hug.
"Look, Lord Hermes," he said. "I'm sorry, but we need to know. What happened to May? She said something about Luke's fate, and her eyes—"
Hermes glared at him and his voice faltered. The look on his face wasn't really anger, though. It was pain. Deep, incredible pain.
"I will leave you now," he said tightly. "I have a war to fight."
He began to shine. They all turned away.
Good luck, Percy, Martha the snake whispered.
Hermes glowed with the light of a supernova. Then he was gone.
Annabeth sat at the foot of her mother's throne and cried. Andromeda simply squeezed her brother's hands in her own as Donnie shook his head, not wanting a hug.
Andromeda looked between the two of them. "It's not your fault. Either of you. He's angry and probably feeling guilty, he just took it out on you. It's not your fault."
Annabeth wiped her eyes. She stared at the hearth like it was her own funeral pyre.
"Annie, what happened?"
"Percy," she said. "What did you mean about Luke's mother? Did you meet her?"
He nodded reluctantly. "Nico and I visited her. She was a little...different." He described May Castellan, and the weird moment when her eyes had started to glow and she talked about her son's Fate.
Annabeth frowned. "That doesn't make sense. But why were you visiting—" Her eyes widened. "Hermes said you bear the curse of Achilles. Hestia said the same thing. Did you—did you bathe in the River Styx?"
He winced when he felt a sharp punch to his shoulder, not fighting back when Andromeda shoved him back with wide eyes.
"Perseus, did you bathe in the River Styx?"
"Don't change the subject."
"I'm not changing the subject. I was never part of this conversation!"
"That's bullshit!"
"Percy! Did you or not?"
"Um...maybe a little."
He told the girls the story about Hades and Nico, and Donnie, and how he'd defeated an army of the dead. He left out the vision of Andromeda pulling him out of the river. He still didn't quite understand that part, and just thinking about it made him embarrassed.
She shook her head in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"
"I had no choice," Percy said. "It's the only way I can stand up to Luke."
"You mean...di immortales, of course! That's why Luke didn't die. He went to the Styx and—Oh no, Luke. What were you thinking?"
"And now we're worried about Luke again."
She stared at him like he'd just dropped from space with her hands on her hips glaring at him. "What'd you say, Perseus?"
"Forget it," he muttered. "The point is he didn't die in the Styx. Neither did I. Now I have to face him. We have to defend Olympus."
Annabeth was still studying his face as Andromeda walked in a circle, mumbling to herself angrily in different languages. 'I guess you're right. My mom mentioned—"
"Plan twenty-three."
She rummaged in her pack and pulled out Daedalus's laptop. The blue Delta symbol glowed on the top when she booted it up. She opened a few files and started to read.
"Here it is," she said. "Gods, we have a lot of work to do."
"One of Daedalus's inventions?"
"A lot of inventions...dangerous ones. If my mother wants me to use this plan, she must think things are very bad." She looked at Percy. "What about her message to you: "Remember the rivers"? What does that mean?"
He shook his head. As usual, he had no clue what the gods were telling him. Which rivers was he supposed to remember? The Styx? The Mississippi?
Just then the Stoll brothers ran into the throne room. "You need to see this," Connor said. "Now."
The blue lights in the sky had stopped, so at first Percy didn't understand what the problem was.
The other campers had gathered in a small park at the edge of the mountain. They were clustered at the guardrail, looking down at Manhattan. The railing was lined with those tourist binoculars, where you could deposit one golden drachma and see the city. Campers were using every single one.
He looked down at the city. He could see almost everything from here—the East River and the Hudson River carving the shape of Manhattan, the grid of streets, the lights of skyscrapers, the dark stretch of Central Park in the north. Everything looked normal, but something was wrong. He felt it in his bones before he realised what it was.
"I don't...hear anything," Donnie said.
That was the problem.
Even from this height, they should've heard the noise of the city—millions of people bustling around, thousands of cars and machines—the hum of a huge metropolis. You don't think about it when you live in New York, but it's always there. Even in the dead of night, New York is never silent.
But it was now.
Percy felt like his best friend had suddenly dropped dead. "What did they do?" His voice sounded tight and angry, and he hardly registered the gentle hand on his back. "What did they do to my city?"
Percy pushed Michael Yew away from the binoculars and took a look.
In the streets below, traffic had stopped. Pedestrians were lying on the sidewalks, or curled up in doorways. There was no sign of violence, no wrecks, nothing like that. It was as if all the people in New York had simply decided to stop whatever they were doing and pass out.
"Are they dead?" Silena asked in astonishment.
Ice coated his stomach. A line from the prophecy rang in his ears: And see the world in endless sleep. He remembered Grover's story about meeting the god Morpheus in Central Park. You're lucky I'm saving my energy for the main event.
"Not dead," he said. "Morpheus has put the entire island of Manhattan to sleep. The invasion has started."